I don't know if I'd call that thing a mountain. I checked the internet: it's only 2,000 feet tall. And 6,000 feet in elevation--which we call street level here.

The aesthetic pleasure of mountains is a bell curve. Eventually you get so high that everything below is a flat mush of one color buried beneath smog, and you think to yourself, "It was more impressive 4,000 ft ago. At least there were trees and mountain goats. Now it's just rocks."

I was at the top of the Gorges in France, which have a very precipitous drop. My wife was terrified to drive on the road, but I stopped it and got out to look down.

I had this strange feeling that I used to have in dreams, of being on a skyscraper, and being drawn by some force to jump. Only, I was awake. I can't say it was an unpleasant feeling at all (though I have zero suicidal tendencies). I've had the same feeling in other places, like the 80th floor of the Marriott in Atlanta, which led me to think it would be fun to monkey down the open interior, with its expanding middle floors. But it scared the bejeezus out of me when I walked up one of the spires in "La Signia Familia" in Barcelona. I had to slowly inch my way back down with my back to the center column, which seemed to be about 8" wide, so I wouldn't jump out one of the windows.

I've always voiced my concern over a bird strike while taking off. I am 1 giant white knuckle till leveling out. Cruising was okay and landing was cake. But lately I've taken to a phobia about the floor falling out from beneath me while at cruising altitude. I know it's irrational, and I can force my self to relax but it is forcing. Not pleasnt at all. 'Til just now, I have never told anyone this, so keep it between us.

And hate going into taller buildings. I don't like buildings that I can feel swaying in the wind.

But when I go deerhunting, the swaying of the treestand can put me to sleep. I guess because I have confidence in the things I build, not others.

Actually sleeping is a good way to sneak up on deer. I've gone to sleep hunting before and woke up to have a deer standing nearby, just looking at me like, "What the hell is he doing? Making all that racket? Well he can't be hunting so I'm safe!" Then the looks on their faces get to me and I start laughing out loud, and the deer will turn its back to me, and show me its ass. Flagging is the term.

Oh! Meant to mention the big ol' concrete "M". Will one day future ufologist look at that concrete M and find the link to the Nazca Lines? The masturbating monkey at Nazca has his penis pointing at the mysterious rune thousands of miles away, and that will be proof goddamnit of aliens visiting the Earth! And that they liked to watch monkeys beat up on the bishop.

I can see my house from there. Well, my old street anyway. I used to run the M after work as long as I was caught up on my homework. Or run halfway up and climb the rest of the way if you prefer. I'd always run down as fast as possible which made the switchbacks interesting and scared the hell out of couples climbing up who didn't see or hear me coming.

the other sport that validates the jumping impulse is hang gliding. The whole time I was reading Dante, this Dante, not that Dante, I was thinking, "Dante, you sound like a hang glider pilot. Doe your wife know about this?"

When I told my girlfriend a thing similar to what Dante said, we were driving to the ski slopes past the hang glider training hill at the time, she said, "Do it."

Incidentally, she was the worst skier I ever spent time with. She has no business at all up there. None. She encouraged me to take up hang gliding and I encouraged her to stay off the slopes permanently. So we were good for each other and steered each other in the proper direction.

I might fall. I might fall. I might fall. I might fall. I might fall. I might fall. That's all I heard all day. She skis like a handicapped person. Like a recovering person with broken bones all over the place. Like she's made of paper and toothpicks or something. I didn't understand her desire to even pretend to think about desiring to go up. She was afraid of

In the background of the photo of Meade are the wave-cut terraces of glacial lake missoula. At full volume it was as high as the top of the mountain you climbed. When the ice-dam that had blocked the rivers burst, the discharge down to the Columbia (which it filled more than 1100 feet deep) and out to the sea peaked at about 9.5 cubic miles/hour of water. The strange turbillions called volks - underwater tornados - were set up as water poured around the submerged, emerging peaks, returning to the canyons. The great geomorphologist j harlen bretz first described it in his explanation of the channeled scablands, and endured about 40 years of vilification before vindication. The cycle repeated and repeated, perhaps nine times. Given what we are learning about the timing of the Clovis culture, there were men and women like yourselves, luckily standing on a peak, witnessing somewhere in Western Washington when a flood 20 miles wide came roaring by, moving so fast it scoured waterfalls in the lava plains and set up gravel dunes 200 feet high.

My husband calls his 'scared of heights' a 'fear of falling', which can stop a mountain hike dead in it's tracks with certain (single log) creek crossings. Bless his heart though, he's now halfway through a CDT thru-hike in NW WY.

If y9ou ever do overcome your fear of falling, you should take this drive:http://www.utah.com/byways/highway_12.htmThe Hogback and the Hell's Backbone are just two of the highlights you can see from your car...